The present invention relates to a new and improved construction of an automatically engageable jaw clutch or gear coupling.
The automatically engageable jaw clutch of the invention is of the type comprising a toothed drive hub, a toothed power take-off hub, and a clutch or coupling star axially displaceable with respect to the drive hub. This clutch star can be continuously connected with the drive hub for conjoint rotation therewith by means of first teeth means formed thereat and has second teeth means which can be brought into engagement with the teeth of the power take-off hub by axially shifting the clutch star. Furthermore, there is provided a screw socket or sleeve which is connected by a pair of coarse-pitch threading with the power take-off hub, has radial play in relation to the clutch star, can be entrained by the clutch star in its direction of rotation by means of a pawl blocking device composed of pawls and a pawl gear-tooth system or ratchet wheel, and during its thread-in movement which is caused by the rotation of the screw socket the latter entrains the clutch star in axial direction.
Heretofore known jaw clutches of this type, for instance as disclosed in German Patent No. 1,959,184 and the corresponding U.S. Pat. No. 3,563,354 and German Patent No. 1,181,992, and the corresponding U.S. Pat. No. 3,154,181 are capable of being articulated to a certain degree in the engaged and disengaged states, in order to be able to compensate alignment errors of the shafts which are coupled with one another. These prior art jaw clutches cannot however be loaded by any appreciable transverse forces. Therefore, it is necessary that both of the shafts which are to be coupled with one another possess bearings or supports which are statically determined in other words, that such shafts each be supported at two respective locations. Due to this requirement the shaft strands between a drive machine and a driven machine, for instance between a gas turbine and a generator, which are to be coupled to one another by means of a jaw clutch of the type mentioned, are relatively long in any case when there is to be expected larger offsetting of the axes of the gas turbine shaft and the generator shaft, and this is especially so because the gas turbine shaft must be connected by a clutch which is flexible in two planes and a therewith merging intermediate shaft with the jaw clutch of the species under discussion.